UPDATE - 64 FETO-linked terror suspects arrested across Turkey

UPDATES WITH MORE SENTENCES

By Fahrettin Gok, Gokhan Yilmaz Omer Ural, Bilal Altıok, Ramazan Kaya and Volkan Kasik

ESKISEHIR/TOKAT/ZONGULDAK/ERZURUM, Ankara (AA) - At least 64 suspects, including active soldiers, have been arrested across Turkey for their alleged links to the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), the group behind the 2016 defeated coup, according to a judicial source on Tuesday.

In central Eskisehir province, 13 suspects, including a so-called provincial imam were rounded up by police, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, said.

In northern Tokat province, security personnel captured 10 suspected FETO members, including active soldiers, who were said to be in touch with “covert imams” of the FETO in the recent past, according to the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office in Tokat.

The office had demanded the arrest of 13 suspects. Police are looking for the remaining three suspects.

In the Zonguldak-based operation, 10 other FETO suspects were arrested by police in an operation.

Separately, in a Kastamonu-based operation, police arrested 12 suspects.

In northwestern Balikesir province, six suspects were rounded up for using ByLock, an encrypted smartphone messaging app used by FETO members before and during the defeated coup.

Also, 13 suspects, including a lieutenant and a cadet, who had been expelled from a military school, were arrested for their links to FETO as part of an eastern Erzurum-centered FETO investigation, according to a statement by the provincial governor's office in Erzurum.

- Jail terms for convicts

Separately on Tuesday, FETO convicts were given jail terms, ranging between two and 10 years, for being members of an armed terrorist organization.

In southestern Sanliurfa province, two convicts were given nine years in jail while another four convicts received two to four years of imprisonment.

Jail terms ranging between two and five years were also handed down on four convicts in eastern Malatya province.

In central Kayseri province, a female convict, who was tried on the charge of being a local chief of FETO members in the district, received a term of 10 years in jail.

Furthermore, a convict was given nine years and four months in prison in western Burdur province.

Eight years and three months’ jail term was also given to a convict in Tekirdag, a province near Istanbul.

The Fetullah Terrorist Organization and its U.S.-based leader Fetullah Gulen orchestrated the defeated coup of July 15, 2016, which left 250 people martyred and nearly 2,200 injured.

Ankara also accuses FETO of being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.